Plant, Animal & Microbe Genomes X Conference

January 12-16, 2002
Town & Country Convention Center
San Diego, CA

Poster: Forest Trees
            

COMPARATIVE MAPPING AND EVOLUTION OF GENE FAMILIES OF PINUS SYLVESTRIS

¹ Department of Biology,University of Oulu,P.O.Box 3000,90014-FIN,Finland

² Institute of Forest Genetics,University of California at Davis,One Shields Avenue,Davis,CA 95616

All pines have the same chromosome number and structure. This suggests that the maps between pine species would show colinearity and that the markers could be transferred across the species. To study this we have constructed a genetic map of Scots pine for comparison to the map of Loblolly pine (Pinus taeda). As predicted, this map shows high colinearity, and many markers can be used in both species. In pines many, if not most, functional genes are members of gene families. Gene families and pseudogenes can complicate mapping projects, and at the same time create interesting questions for the study of sequence evolution in pines. We have compared the evolution of several members of the adh and PHY gene families in different pine species. We have also characterized levels of sequence variation (SNPs) at some of the loci.